Making it Brain – Zoroark GX/Magnezone and Buzzwole/Lycanroc in Expanded

Hello Some1sPC readers! I’m excited to be back writing another article, this time about the Expanded format! Unfortunately will not be able to attend the upcoming Costa Mesa Regional Championship, but I was at Dallas Regionals to start off the year, and I have spent time testing this new format and I think there is a lot to take away from Dallas heading into Costa Mesa.

Zoroark On Top

No one can dispute it, Zoroark GX decks are the best decks in the format. We saw these variants take five of the top eight spots in Dallas and all of the top four spots. Even the decks that are built to beat Zoroark such as Andrew Mahone’s 9th Place Buzzwole GX/Lycanroc GX deck or the Drampa GX/Tauros GX/Garbodor deck that took the remaining three top-eight placements in Dallas still don’t beat Zoroark decks every single time. Dallas also brought with it the emergence of a new tech in Zoroark decks, Red Card. The ability to spam Trade, Red Card your opponent and the finish off the turn with a Hex Maniac before attacking puts on so much aggression that most decks cannot deal with.

Ultra Prism's Effect

I honestly don’t think Ultra Prism brings too much to the Expanded format. Some decks may add Cynthia, but ultimately N and Colress remain the better shuffle/draw options. I don’t think any sort of Dusk Mane Necrozma deck will do too well, it would either be paired with Magnezone or Bronzong and with many Zoroark decks now running two copies of Hex Maniac, Ability reliant decks such as these will have a difficult time getting anywhere. I do think there could be some potential with Solgaleo Prism Star in combination with Battle Compressor. Accelerating up to nine energy from the discard pile onto your field in one turn against Zoroark decks seems extremely good, but I think the aggression Zoroark decks put on don’t really allow you to take a turn off to use Radiant Star. And finally, I do think that Glaceon GX is the card that is most likely to make an impact on the Expanded format. Being able to simply attach a Water energy from hand to an Eevee with the Energy Evolution Ability and get the turn one Freezing Gaze lock in combination with a Red Card, Ghetsis, or Delinquent is an extremely powerful combo. I just believe that if Zoroark is still able to set up under the Freezing Gaze lock, it will be too much for Glaceon to combat, even when using cards like Cyrus Prism Star and Enhanced Hammer to disrupt Zoroark decks.

So I think heading into Costa Mesa players should either be prepared with a deck that can consistently beat Zoroark decks or just simply play a Zoroark deck themselves that they are comfortable with. So we’re going to start things off with a Zoroark deck that I believe consistently beats all the other Zoroark Variants, Zoroark with Magnezone.

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SOME1SPC was created by Christopher Taporco, Dylan Bryan, Marc Albright, and Russell LaParre with the intention to provide quality competitive content for the Pokemon Trading Card Game. We're a group of friends looking to better ourselves and the community by leveling up our deckbuilding, gameplay, and knowledge.